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Qass £iLll 

Book. 



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jESHC^^SiV.© ]p©]E2i: 



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ON TUK DKATII or 



i NATHANIEL PEABODY ROGERS. 



BY GEORGE S. BURLEIGH. 



IIAirrFOlM), 

rcnUSHED AT THK CHARTKU OA.K OmCK. 

1840. 



€t 



ELEGIAC POEM 



Oyf THE DEATH OF 



NATHANIEL PEABODY ROGERS. 



BY GEORGE S. BURLEIGH. 



HAETFOED. 

PUBLISHED AT THE CHARTKU OAK OFFICE. 
181G. 



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Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1846, by 

GEORGE S. BURLEIGH, 

iu the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Connecticut. 






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I^IK^SA© IP© 



O THOU, our dearest Brotber, 

Loved as we loved no other, 
Best of the Good, and truest of the True — 
Crowned by the wreathed love of a chosen few, 
Could death strike thee and spare a thousand hearts 
Less dear and high? Ah me ! the hot tear starts 

From the deep founts of agony 
Wrung sternly out 
By tyrannous Wo, who puts to utter rout 
The smiles of love and soul-born admiration, — 

Now all swept down in the full tide of grief. 
As the swoll'n torrent sweeps the autumnal leaf; 



ELEGIAC POEM. 



And only desolation 
Mocks the once joyful world of love and life 
Within us, now that thou art gone. 
Ah wo ! for the dark dawn 
Of this our doom's-day, turbulent with the strife 
Of bandit Sorrows, that drive home the knife 
Of massacre to the bosom of our joys, 
That like blithe Boys 
And red-lipp'd Girls laughed round thee, 
Delighted when they found thee — 
Tracking thy meteor genius by its bright 
Corruscant fires, with a most pure delight. 



O Brother, can it be 
That thy great Heart, all tremulous and warm 
With its quick throbbings of Humanity, 

Is hushed In that pale form ! 

And shall we never see 



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ELEGIAC POEJI. 



The mild light of thy generous-beaming eye, 
That flashed rebuke on holiest Tyranny, 
And life on us ? — never more feel the touch 
Of that brave hand whose cunning skill could make 
Old Wrong grow pale, and her dread temples quake, — 
And from whose fingers only death could clutch 
The magic weapon of thy glorious strength — 
Thy Pen, more mighty than the bloody length 
Of lance, or weight of keenest battle-steel ? 

Shall we no longer feel 
The burning tide of thy free Thought, that came 
Like inspiration from thy tongue of flame ? 



O, how could death in niglit eternal furl 
The ever sweet smiles that were wont to curl 
That beautiful lip, and light that soul-full eye ? 
We did not think thou would'st be left to die,— 
Our fond hearts trusted that thy Brother-soul 



C$" 



ELEGIAC POEM 

Would have made captive to its sweet control, 

Even the Tomb-King, as it captived ours ; 

Or made him quail before its fire-armed powers, 

I As the old monster Wrong has quailed amid her 

I towers. 

: We saw thy Soul rise kindling as a star 
Over the midnight of our world's decay, 
Alone, though marsh-fires flashed along its way, 
Which to the eye, that marked them from afar. 
Seemed Brother-orbs, uprisen to constellate 
The heavens of Truth, bright heralds of the day: 
But only thou didst keep thy Kingly state, 
In the high star-path, while thy seeming Peers 
Who took bright glory from thy beams for years, 
To their own narrow orbits sunk agen, 
Ked, poisoning vapors in the Bigot's fen. 



Thy Soul was brilliant with a thousand beams ; 



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ELEGIAC POEM. 

Wit, Kke the Nortli-lights, quivered in its sky, 

Inimitable ;■ and bright Poesy, 

Fteed from her fetters, wantoned like wild dreams, 
Around thy Kingly Thought *, 

Truth bared her bosom to thy spirit's lips, 

And gave thee strength to be her dearest child ; 

Love, all the tenderness of a sister, taught 
To thy strong nature undefiled ; 
High Justice armed thee with her iron whips, 
And made thy soul to be as stern as mild ; 
Truth-armored Satire, from thy genius, wrought 
Arrows of lightning, and heaven-tempered blades, 

\ To cleave the Evil in its ambuscades — 
Law's cunning labyrinths, or the Temple's veil,— 
Piercing grey Custom's rust-enammellcd mail. 
We saw thee iling thy banner to the skies, 
And storm Oppression in his Sanctuary, 
Where the grim Horror, dragon-toothed, did bury 
His scaly folds in sacerdotal robes, 



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ELEGIAC POEM 

And in feigned worship roll the burning globes 

Of Lis devouring eyes 
On all free hearts, to mark them for his prey, 
While his jaws champed in human blood and clay ; 
We saw the writ,hing of his serpent train, 
As blood and fire leapt from his battered scales, 
And thy brave hand let fly its blows again, 
Like the quick bounding of a hundred flails 
On the white sheaves of Autumn. Thus thy Soul 
Of truth and valor, marshalled ours to war 
Beside thee, battling for the holy law 
Of Brotherhood, and Love's supreme control. 



We shrunk not back, nor di Ist thou weary then ; 
Nor cold distrust of heart-congealed men. 
Nor the Oppressor's maskless hate, could make 
Thy courage faint, or blunt thy beamy Pen. 
Thy path was upward, "like the eagle's ken; 



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ELEGIAC POEM. 9 

Though the false priest, for very terror's sake, 

Threw venom round thee, like a trampled snake, 

And muttered sorceries from his cloistered den — 
Butonlyfound how well thou couldst disarm 

His black-writ cabala of its deadly charm. 



He could not harm thee, for thy manly tread 
Was high above him, trampling down the shafts 
Of his poor malice with a great undread 
Of all his sulphuric terrors, even the red 
Damnation bubbling in eternal draughts, 
From his god's heart of hatred. Thou didst know 
That love, the pure love of Humanity 
Was stronger fur and more divinely high, 
Than all the monsters of all monstrous creeds — 
Baal, or Mammon, or the Almighty Foe, 
Wliose dark law sanctifies the damning deeds 
Of War and Slavery, and the plundering 



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10 



ELEGIAC POEM. 



'i 



Of man by his strong brother. In the "wreck 

Of Faiths and old Lies, thou didst ever cling 

With an unwavering fortitude to this 

High truth, ' Where man is there the true God is ;' 

That the One Soul, alive in everything, 

Joyous in all, dellghteth most to deck 

Its viewless Being in the visible form 

Of Man, whose heart with higher love beats warm, 

And thus is holiest, fitting most to be 

The only shrine and fane of Deity. 



While solemn troops, heart-wasted at the sin 
And wrong and wo, too long man's evil dower, 
Troubled the blank air with their clamorous din 
In helpless asking of the unhelping Power 
Who bids man do or suffer, thou didst see 
That their vain prayers fell idly back, and man 
Groaned on beneath his hallowed tyranny. 



ELEGIAC POEM. 11 

And only deepened his primeval ban ; 

Then was it that thy soul began 
To toss old fetters from it, and be free ; 

Then did it dare 
To speak the Gospel of Humanity, 
And turn to action the weak zcords of prayer. 

Then didst thou lower the lifted eye 
And look around thee for the Spirit of Love, 

Nor waste thy heart on the blue sky 
T\'Tiere the crowned Hate sits scowling from above. 

A hundred years shall find thy growing Thought 
A flaming pillar in the midnight march 
Of Man to Freedom, lighting the dark arch 
And desert path through which his way is sought — 
A hundred years, and yet thy name shall be 
Life to the flagging pulses of the Free, 
And Love's unquenchable torch shall light thy 
memory. 



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12 ELEGIAC POEJI 

Onward before the plodding marcli of tbem 
Who hailed thee Brother in the opening strife, 
Thy Soul went flashing like a heaven-lit gem 
On the high forehead of Earth's Better Life. 



Sowing the seeds of love and truth and right, 
Thou knewest well what harvest would be thine — 
Hatred and terror, and the opposing might 
Of the strong robber, in whose cruel sight 
Mercy is crime, and blood as sparkling wine ; 
And against him and his pale Sanctifier, 
While keenly conscious of the lightest touch, 
Thy Soul was armed with fortitude divine 
To bear their shafts, still pressing high and higher 
Above their scorn, though thy large heart was such 
It had gladlier chimed with them in one sweet choir 
Of human Brotherhood. But they were deaf 
And blind to the deep wrongs of suffering man ; 



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ELEGIACPOEM. 13 

While thy bared nerves were thrilling with his grief, 
I They could not feel, till thy rcbukings ran 
jLike lightning through their temples, and the steel 
I Of their mailed bosoms ; then they roused to hate 
And fear and tremble, but avroke too late 
To stay the bolts that made their altars reeh 



Ah Tvo! 
1 That while thy gallant hand 

Whirl'd fast its flashing brand 
Against the many-visaged foe — 
I The cunning Tyrant throned in every land, — 
A trusted Brother should have dealt the blow 
! Whose rankling poison laid our dearest Champion 

low ! 
\ One from his couch of sloth and pampered ease, 
(Plucked the soft feather for the winged dart ; 
iAnd even a Woman dipt in her own heart 



14 ELEGIAC POEM. 

The shaft for venom in the bloody lees 

Of its cool malice ; He, who till that hour 

Had felt thy pulses in his bosom bound, 

Sped the keen arrow from whose treacherous wound 

Thy open heart poured out its dear life to the ground. 



Ah me ! returning faith shall never purge 
That murder-stain from Lis immortal glory, 
All that the love of myriad hearts can urge 
Shall leave this blot on his divinest story. 
But for thyself alone, what now avails 
Thy great forgiveness ? Years of misery. 
Even in the applause of Freedom's victory, 
i Could not appease his own dread Arbiter, 

When the roused heart shall shake the bigot scales 
j From its blind vision, and old loves recur 
I To sting as they cheered once thy brave co-warrlor. 
jSTot all the fires that blast remorseful vice 



ELEGIAC POEM. 15 j 

Can ever pierce their stolid fronts of iron 
AYbo, joined "witli liim, in vulgar cowardice 
Shook their base heels against our dying Lion. 



Yet God forgive them even as thou forgave ; 
j We will not mar the green rest of thy grave 

With any hate, even for those who slew thee — 
i They wist not what they did, they never knew thee. 

But we will weep, for thou hast left us lonely, 
I No heart like thine could cheer us on our way, 
I Thou the severest, lovliest, the Only, 

Thou foremost star in Freedom's coming day. 

Our gathering band of Brothers, one by one, 

Come and look sadly to thy vacant place, 
j Where the distaindest outcast of our race, 

Had once a brave, full-hearted Champion. 

And streaming eyes, and lips that only quiver, 
! Give their unspeakable Sorrow at the thought 



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16 ELEGIACPOEM. 



That we sliall hear thy voice no more forever, 
SoundinG; its startling; fire- words to deliver 
Trampled Humanity — great words that taught 
Hope to the wronged, and terror to the wronger, 
\ Making the frailest heart of sufferino- stronger. 



Our grief is deep, and deeper yet for this, 
That ours is not the deepest ; thy dear flock 
To whom thy hand was bounty, and thy kiss 
Love-fraught was gladness, and thy strength a rock, 
Around one widowed heart defenceless droop 
Like frosted flowers round their shivered si;em. 
Their homeless Love-thoughts, in a famished troop, 
1 Back to their hearts recoil and feed on them. 



Yet gentle weepers, we will share your grief, 
Nor mock your spirits with a vain relief; 



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ELEGIAC POEM. 17' 



Here, as thronged Pities gather 
Eound the last home of a loved Friend and Father, 
Our arms of fond remembrances shall press 
A117a*5, with him, to our hearts, in faithful tenderness. 



There is a power in Music's voice to dull 
The sting of death, and sorrow's keener pang ; 
And ye are songsters, sweet as ever sang 
In woody vallies, where the veiled Bul-bul 
Makes Night enamored, and the serpent's fang 
Droop venomless — O wake its potent charm, 
And your great sorrow of its sting disarm ; 
Breathe, fair-haired Sister-Band, a song of love 

j And memory — softer than the Nightingale's — 
Sad as the loiie hymn of the Mourning Dove, 

I That far in secret to the Ioav wind wails ; 

I Sing, if the full heart can be pour'd in song; 

■ And the deep music on its tide shall bear 



18 ELEGIACPOEM. 

The oppressive weight of woe that lingers there, 

As waters sweep the choking leaves along, 

That creeping frosts stripp'd off and showered down, 

In windy Autumn. Death has stripp'd the fair 

And sheltering branch whereon your life-hopes grew. 

Struck with its frost, a moment sere and brown, 

Shook the old greenness, then like dead leaves flew. 

On your choked hearts, the fluttering hopes and joys 

Of summer youth, fell, deadening their clear flow 

To a deep sorrow and a muffled noise, 

The tide and tone of a most bitter woe. 

Sing for the dear love of your dear, loved Sire ; 

If aught can reach his viewless spirit now, 

'Tis the sweet voices of his own sweet choir, 

Who might put life beneath Death's pallid brow ; 

Haply the echo of your plaintive hymn, 

May seem the murmur of his answering voice ; 

And oft, in moony calm, and twilight dim, 

His smile may come to make your hearts rejoice. 



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ELEGIAC POEM. 



19 



And youj ye Brother-Band, 
The Mountain Minstrels of his own dear land ; 

[ Whom he led forth from solitude to be 
Life, love, and wonder, and delight, the praise 
Of two wide lands, a living Melody 
In the loud clamor of these jarring days — ■ 
O lift your bird-like voices in a plaint 

; Of mellow agony, making all hearts faint 
With overwhelming sweetness. Be the voice 
Of their great grief who have no voice beside, 
And of their want, who know not of their loss. 
The Birds shall join you with a wailing noise. 
And their pained breasts with heavy pinions beat, 
For one whose nature was as free, and sweet, 
And simple as their own. Old trees, that toss 
Their great arms to the tempest in the pride 
Of their stout hearts — forgetting to rejoice 
In Spring or Summer, now that he is gone 
"^Vho loved them so, shall answer, sigh for sigh. 



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Is quenclied, with •R-liicli their joyous path was 

lighted, 
Will muffle all their waters to a dull 
Deep gurgle, faintly heard, low, sad and musical. 



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20 ELEGIACPOEM. 

The winds that mourn him as they murmur by, 
Telling their sorrows to the siofhincr corn. • 

The boundinof Brooks in which his heart deliorhted, ; 
The bright Cascades, that flash, and foam, and gleam ; 
Like his own rushing thoushts, now that this beam ; 



Sing, Mountain ilinstrels, a most wild lament — 
The Tery rocks that cap yon snowy peaks. 
And the ' Old Man ' to whom his touch hath lent 
Life and a Toice, shall join the song that speaks 
i His virtues, for they loved him well whose soul 
{ Could make their granite, Human. The deep roU 
) Of thunder 'mid the mountains, clap on clap, 
j That make the hills rock like a tremulous wave, 



ELEGIAC POEM. 21 



Shall mourn bis death, whose glowing utterance gave 
Sharp peal for peal, to its most terrible bolts ; 
The giant Winds that throng the awful Gap, 
Where the wild North rolls back its mountain gate 
To let them pass, when all its host revolts 
Against the South-land — winds that sway the great 
Tree-tops as he swayed human hearts, shall tame 
Their loud voice to a low melodious sigh, 
And o'er his grave for heavy sorrow die, 
That they no more may fan his soul of flame. 



Mute Nature mourns him, for his heart put life 
Into her thousand forms, and gave them love, 
Even while he struggled in the hottest strife 
For Freedom, keeping his brave flag above 
The reeling ranks, though shivered oft, and torn. 
Still first and hicrhest in the battle borne. 






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22 ELEGIACPOEM. 



Sing, Mountain Minstrels : sadder yet 
Than sighing winds, or waters choked with leaves, 
Shall rise the wail, where human suffering grieves, 
And human tears a Brother's grave shall wet. 
O, breathe t] e sorrows of the sable tlirall, 
For whom his soul drew first its sword of fire, 
In the o-reat name of libertv for all ; 
Sing, and strong hearts shall quiver like the wire 
Of some brave Harper, harping on his lyre. 
Pale Prisoners, mourning over death to come. 
Or joy and innocence long lost in crime, 
Shall weep less bitterly for their evil doom, 
Than for deep sorrow that the hungry tomb 
Has hid a heart that loved them in the slime 
Of their blood-guiltiness. This, their deeper gloom, 
Shall hide awhile the horrid gallows-tree, 
And his h'gh heart, gone cold, be all that they shall 
see. 



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ELEGIACPOEM. 23 



One voice of love and hope is hushed in death — 
Cold is the hand that led the freest Free ! 
One pang shall thrill through wide Humanity — 
And Hate, struck dumb, shall hold her envious 

breath 
With one internal spasm of remorse, 
And shivering, fear to touch his hallowed corse ; 
Love's tears shall rain on her cold altar there, 
Drenching its firclcss ashes with vain grief; 
Mute suffering lift its agonizing prayer, 
To the cold sky, in looks of new despair, 

More hopeless of relief. 
Sweet Poesy laments for her dear child, 
By running streams, — on old familiar hills ; 
In the rock-passes of the mountain-wild, 
And where new death each silent valley fills. 
Wit's borial light, that quivered from his lips, 
And led its dance round Freedom's Northern Star, 
Goes, pale and tremulous, to its last eclipse. 



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24 ELEGIACPOEM. 

Slow fading out from its fantastic war, 

Ray after ray, till into night it slips, 

As the moon sheathes her reddened scimitar. 



All Aspirations of the human soul, 
Fire-winged to cleave the heavy clouds of wrong, 
With drooping eyes around his coffin throng, 
"Who gave them life to search the Eternal Goal ; 
And banded Terrors, such as made the strong 
Old heart of Tyranny shiver, and the Abysms 
Of red-eyed Bigots quake, hang silent round 
The arrowy Pen, on whose keen point they flew ; 
And o'er his cold heart, bending to the ground. 
Droop the brave forms of dreadless Heroisms, 
Drowning the brand from whose quenched flame 

they drew 
The fire of their quick being ; while disperst 
By the swift beat of his retreating vans, 



ELEGIAC POEM. 25 



Pities, and Pangs, and Sorrows, that were nurst 
On his life-blood, and Weepings such as erst 
Rained for Jerusalem, fly o'er the lairds, 
Lighting on all mute Nature's hearts, and man's. 



Sing, Mountain Minstrels, the sweet songs he loved — 

The tender lays of want and pining wo, 

That wail in your soft numbers, like the low i 

Plaint of an exiled Angel, who hath roved 

In forlorn seeking for his home, so long, 

That earth's despair hath filled his heavenly song : 

Then tell the softened hearts, to pity moved, 

That with such tones his own soft breast wouldheave, 

"When burning tongue andmatchless pen, were vain 

To cure the thrillings of his bosom pain. 

For sufFcrin<]f crowds his hand could not relieve. 

Sing Freedom's battle-hymns, as ye have sung, 

When the live words went crinkling, quick and hot, I 



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26 ELEGIACPOEM. | 

Like Valor's Uglitning from each voUiecl tongue, 
Till even cowards their pale fears forgot, 
And swelled th» surges of our charging cry, 
With one full shout for Truth and Liberty ! 
Then He, whose spirit gave and caught the fire, 
Shall hear the ajithem in his home afar. 
And answer back from Freedom's Martyr Choir, 
While hand and voice uplifted, call us ' Highek,' 
With tone and mien majestic as a star. 



That waving hand shall be our summons still, 

That voice of music lead us from above ; 

Our dear Delight is victor over ill. 

And lives, immortal in our deathless love ; 

Lives in heroic goodness, and all deeds 

Of valor done for pained Humanity ; 

Lives in his own high words of Liberty, 

That the free winds have scattered, like the seeds 
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ELEGIAC p o E ar 



27 



Of an eternal trueness, — yet to be 

A green-bowered shelter for the refugee 

From every crumbling hold of death-struck Tyrrany. 

Let no vain sorrow deaden the quick beat 

Of living sympathy — our champion Uves^ 

And down our ranks the word of cheering gives, 

Leading the charge on Slavery's last retreat. 

Be the sole requiem o'er his fallen form, 

The deep'ning thunder of our battle-storm; 

The only tomb-lamp o'er his dust to shine, 

The flash of falchions in our vanward line ; 

The sweetest tear on his green grave to fall, 

A tear of love and sympathy for all ; 

And from his flag, that twines its shivered stafl*, 

One signal draw, 
To be our watch-word and his epitaph, — 
"Excelsior!'* 



28 K O T E s 



NOTES 



One from Lis couch of slotli and pampered ease, 
Plucked the soft feather for the ■winged dart. 

Page 13. 

No reader conversant v/ith the history of the 
Anti-Slavery movement, and the heartless attack on 
Mr. Rogers, by his former associates, "will for a 
moment doubt "who is meant in the text. But for 
others, it may be necessary to name that amateur 
Reformer and refined Gladiator, to whom Radical- i 
ism presents a lield for pleasant recreation — a kind 
of intellectual cock-fight — Mr. Edmuxd Quincy ; 
a man whose unfeeling and cruel treatment of his 
former friend, was as unprovoked as it was brutal. 






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29 



And even a Woman, dipt in her own heart 
The shaft for venom. — Pages 13-14. 

On Maria Weston Chapman, more than on any 
soul besides, lies the deed, whose Litter treachery 
and malignant Ligotry, hastened the death of our 
lamented Brother. With the unforgivingness of a 
savage — though a JSTon-Resistant in theory — she 
poisoned in secret the arrows which another shot, 
from which the sensitive and delicate nature of 
Rogers received a death-wound. 



He, wdio till that hour 
Had felt thy pulses in his bosom bound, 
Sped the keen arrow. — Page 14. 

The love and admiration, almost boundless, which 
Mr. Rogers felt for Mr. Garrison, and which seemed 
to be reciprocated, so fully that the latter spoke of 
themselves as the Siamese Twins, could yet be no 
security against the envy and hate ' of his friend, 
when a poor question of policy, touching the/on?i.s 
of Anti- Slavery action, divided their opinions. 
What a terrible revulsion must a nature like that of 



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I>rOTES 



Mr. Kogers experience, when the twii, -brother of 
his heart started up an unrelenting Foe, pouring 
fierce denunciations upon him, from the treasures of 
that immaculate bosom that never forgave an 
enemy. 

Let this be said in some extenuation for Mr. Gar- 
rison, that his strong nature, so long used to the 
stern wejipons of destructivcne s, did In blindness, 
what his better heart would have revolted at. 



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Breathe, falr-haircd Sister-Band, a song of love. 

Page 17. 

The lovely children of Mr. Rogers inherit the 
fine musical gift which he possessed. Three of the 
sisters, with a brother, have charmed the public 
with the sweet harmony of their voices, as all who 
know them In private life, have been charmed by the 
loving simplicity of their hearts. Yet not the inno- 
cent sweetness of the chlhlren, could wrinnr a 
kindly notice from the unenviable few who flung 
their shafts at the Father. 



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/ NOTES. 31 

And you, ye Brother-band — Page 19. 

Tlio Hutcliinsons — tLat ' nest of Brothers -with a 
Sister in it.' Mr. Rogers was first to predict their 
popularity, and lend them encouragement, in terms 
which seemed extravagant to many *, but the love 
and admiration of two worlds has set the seal of 
truth upon his predictions. Here, as elsewhere, his 
quick perceptions, and most delicate taste, saw at a 
glance, what slower natures reach after long search- * 
inor. 



And the "Old Man" to whom his touch hath lent 
Life and a soul — Page 20. 

The " Old Man of the Mountain," a picturesque 
cliff at the Franconia Xotch. The well-known and 
admirable letters in the character of this ' Old 
Man ' were from the pen of Mr. Rogers. These, 
like many of his writings, abound in grand and 
graphic descriptions of New Hampshire, scenery — 
wild, bold and full of poetry as the cliffs and woods 
themselves. 



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32 



NOTES. 



" Excelsior." 

The fitting and Iierolc motto of that fearless advo- 
cate of Progression, The Herald of Freedom, 
whose excelsior character, won for itself and its 
brave Editor, the hate and envy of slower- visioued 
men. 






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FINIS. 



